AHC: African Japan

Ultimate Paragon

Banned
With a POD after 1700, create a modern imperialist nation in sub-Saharan Africa that can compete with the European powers and carve out its own slice of the continent during the Scramble for Africa. An African equivalent of Japan, if you will.
 

eschaton

Ultimate Paragon said:
With a POD after 1700, create a modern imperialist nation in sub-Saharan Africa that can compete with the European powers and carve out its own slice of the continent during the Scramble for Africa. An African equivalent of Japan, if you will.
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Arguably Ethiopia already did this IOTL. Tewodros II united a fractious realm in the mid 19th century. By the 1880s Menelik expanded the Empire significantly into lands in the south, west and east outside of the Ethiopian Highlands, resulting in essentially the present-day borders of Ethiopia.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Ethiopia, Transvaal, South African Republic (Vrystaat)

Ethiopia, Transvaal, South African Republic (Vrystaat) would be the options.

Best,
 

birdboy2000

Banned
eschaton said:
Arguably Ethiopia already did this IOTL. Tewodros II united a fractious realm in the mid 19th century. By the 1880s Menelik expanded the Empire significantly into lands in the south, west and east outside of the Ethiopian Highlands, resulting in essentially the present-day borders of Ethiopia.
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This - a lot of people don't realize that Ethopia very much improved its position during the colonial era.

But I think Ethiopia needs to do a bit better than OTL to end that argument - they beat Italy at Adowa, but still had to concede territory, and its expansion was against other African polities. Menelik II pressing the advantage and driving the Italians into the sea, or gaining a chunk of Eritrea (but not all they wanted) once the Great Powers intervene on Italy's behalf would go a long way towards improving their military reputation. As would butterflying (or rebuffing) Italy's attempt for revenge.
 
Cuāuhtemōc

Cuāuhtemōc

Banned
Muhammad Ali and his successors did a bang up job of turning Egypt into a powerhouse, threatening even the very existence of the Ottoman Empire and ruling everything south up to northern Uganda. Granted that did not last because of the debts the Khedive owed to the Europeans.
 
LHB

LHB

TFSmith121 said:
Morocco and Egypt are not sub-saharan.

Best
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And for Egypt to work you need to avoid direct conflict between Muhammad Ali Pasha and the Sultan and avoid Abbas I who undid a lot of Muhammad Ali's reforms resulting in more lost ground Ismai'il the Magnificent had to catch up on.

Morocco, when you're talking the Arab World, is screwed thanks to the bad luck of being next door to Spain and what will become French Algeria and being too far away from or not valuable enough to get someone to distract them.
 

Elcheapodeca

Whats Ethiopia's chances of industrializing and undergoing an agricultural revolution. Those two will be the most important in keeping up with European powers. The first in order to grow the economy and produce greater amounts of military goods for a national army, and the second to increase population growth within the country.

I'm not sure how Ethiopia's government was structured. Can someone more knowledgeable then me clear that up a little?
 

Emperor Constantine

Elcheapodeca said:
Whats Ethiopia's chances of industrializing and undergoing an agricultural revolution. Those two will be the most important in keeping up with European powers. The first in order to grow the economy and produce greater amounts of military goods for a national army, and the second to increase population growth within the country.

I'm not sure how Ethiopia's government was structured. Can someone more knowledgeable then me clear that up a little?
Click to expand...

Well from what I remember Ethiopia tended to be backwards in regards to government. They still had feudalism up to the 20th century, so much of the country was governed by vassal Kings and Dukes owing loyalty to the Emperor. At the same time though, Emperor Menelik II did begin to modernize the government, creating the fist cabinet of ministers to help centralize and run the empire. It also seems that Menelik reached out to Russia, who aided in setting up modern hospitals and introducing western-style technology and administration. So really Ethiopia was remarkably ahead of its time in regards to the rest of Africa, and I'd say that if they started modernizing earlier, like in the 1860s, then they could have beat the British and French to the surrounding territories and potentially be strong enough to make both nations think twice, or at least chose to ally with the Empire rather then waste tens of thousands of troops on a far away country.
 

GalacticKiss

birdboy2000 said:
This - a lot of people don't realize that Ethopia very much improved its position during the colonial era.
Click to expand...

Yeah and they made alliances with Japan because they saw the similarity in their position.

Of course, that alliance ended up dying due to conflicting interest later on.
 
Kome

Kome

Emperor Constantine said:
then they could have beat the British and French to the surrounding territories and potentially be strong enough to make both nations think twice, or at least chose to ally with the Empire rather then waste tens of thousands of troops on a far away country.
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Technically OTL Britain and France already decided not to waste troops on Ethiopia, so mission accomplished there.

Of course, that also included not wanting to waste troops in supporting Ethiopia either.
 

SunDeep

Banned
Looking at geography, resources and the will to modernise, what about the Merina Kingdom in Madagascar- perhaps in an ATL where Radama II gets a translator to read through the Lambert Charter first and refuses to sign it?
 

Fubart Solman

I think that the biggest barrier to the Boer Republics having colonies is their lack of a coastline. If the Boers were able to hold the Natalia Republic, they could potentially take over somewhere smallish, perhaps some Pacific islands.
 
Dragos Cel Mare

Dragos Cel Mare

Banned
Another Poster (coughSoverhincough) says that Ethiopia could have become a Great Power if the Monarchy had continued in power.
 

Tyr

As an idea for Ethiopia I think you need a more active Italian threat and another nation which wants to counter-balance Italy.
Say Italy is a big more imperialistic. Perhaps it is a lot more vocal on reclaiming French territory, or looking to Greece is upsetting the British.
Then you could get Ethiopia following Japan's lead of seeing industrialisation as the only way to compete and you could get foreign powers willing to subsidise companies to help.

From what I gather of Ethiopia IOTL is it was a bit too conservative and felt too secure in its independence. You need Ethiopia to be actively worried that its only a matter of time before foreign powers seek to attack.

Keeping Eritrea is quite crucial really. It needs a port.
Hell.
If it keeps sea access then perhaps it could really follow Japan's lead and develop by playing off the interests of multiple nations against each other.
 
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